China calls US a ‘joke’ as it raises tariff for final time
China calls US a ‘joke’ as it raises tariff for final time
It’s sick of playing this numbers game.
In a statement from China’s Ministry of Finance, which we’ve translated using Google, the country says that any further tariffs from the US side would “no longer make economic sense,” and that the US “will become a joke in the history of the world economy.”
China says that at the new tariff rate of 125 percent there is no longer any “market acceptance for US goods exported to China,” so there’s no sense in raising tariffs further. “If the US continues to play the tariff numbers game, China will ignore it,” the statement says.
China isn’t ruling out other forms of retaliation, however, ending the statement with a warning: “If the US insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China’s interests, China will resolutely counterattack and fight to the end.” Yesterday the country announced it was reducing the number of Hollywood films it would permit to release, and over the last week it has also restricted import and export rights for a number of US companies.
Remember when jokes were supposed to make people laugh? This is a horror movie. And we're all the happy young girl you see in the first scene that you know is going to be gored within the first 10 minutes
Can't wait to see $5k iphones only inside US.
actually, if there is no longer any market acceptance of US goods inside China, then China can freely keep raising tax on US goods to any amount since there are no longer any US goods to tax.
It is pointless to raise tariffs for china, but it is fun to see Trump getting triggered.
That was exactly China's most recent response. Nobody will buy US products at these tariff rates, so further response will be through other avenues.
Yea, i think they probably stopped at the highest amount where the US made product will still be more expensive than China imports.
iPremium iPhone device they are going to upsell it to the rich. For the poor they will market a monthly subscription.
Look at this graph:
So.. draw your own conclusions.
I initially wrote a long analysis, but then I figured that these numbers are quite big to fuck around with. We'll find out soon enough.
It always makues meh lauff
COVID knocked all global trade in that period.
Yes sure.
Now, if you look at the change from the beginning of Trump's first term where the tariffs were increased by 10% points (from 10% to 20%) and to the end of Biden's term in which Trump's tariffs were maintained, the imports dropped by 100 billion - regardless of COVID.
That could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you want to talk about.
But.. now Trump increases the tariffs by an additional 114% points. (From 20% to 134%)
Assuming there is a correlation between tariffs and imports, which is the very point of doing it according to Trump, that would mean that imports would have to drop 1140 billion. This is obviously not possible from a 400 billion import, so it's essentially putting a full stop to all trades with China.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well. It's great that USA is not paying China, but... where does USA get stuff from then? 400 billion dollars worth of stuff not being available in USA will definitely cause all kinds of issues.
Didn't a lot of the trade with China just end up being rerouted through other countries. Does this graph take that into account.
The graph doesn't even make clear if it's using inflation adjusted USD (which is the only fair way to compare trade numbers over a period of decades) or just nominal annualized USD (where 1 USD represents quite a different amount of worth in 1990 than it does in 2025).
That is not a positive indication on the competence of the people doing it, and it seems unlikely that they fucked up something as basic as this whilst at the same time being professional enough to dig up and include information on estimated rerouted trade flows (which would be a lot more work to obtain).
Mind you, inflation adjusted USD wouldn't really change the trend, but it would change the steepness of the growth over the years, plus it's just the proper way to represent such data.
This graph probably not, but it's one of the reasons why south east asian countries like Vietnam also got slapped with hefty tariffs. Not to mention the nefarious Penguin Kingdom.
Looks like a reduction in trade roughly on par with 2008 in absolute terms but maybe only 2/3 as much in relative terms?
I think that is optimistic. Here's another graph:
Graph ends before 2nd Trump term.
The Verge can't afford a proper translator? Especially when there are direct quotes with nuanced vocabulary?
The verge can't even afford someone who knows how to build a PC
They changed the titles of everyone in the facilities department to "journalist"
Just one more
lanetariff, bro"a joke" is the perfect one word term for the US... I'm tired of being constantly embarrassed
So what was that about electing trump to prevent WWIII?
Also he said he would lower prices, but of course his tariffs will instead raise prices.
As the New York Times put it last year: "Trump Vows to Lower Prices. Some of His Policies May Raise Them."
But guys, guys, there's gonna be so many jobs sorting tiny screws in factories.
And it even pays half minimum wage! So great again!
Final time, sure.
Probably final from China. If they were to increase it again they might as well block trade completely. Not that the geniuses in charge of the US won't increase it again just to have the final word like a child
China, you used to be cool. What happened?
qing dynasty?
What China is doing right now is in fact very cool. Unfortunately they do a lot of other uncool shit, and have been doing a lot of uncool shit for a very long time. Giving USA the middle finger is however incredibly cool, and something the rest of the world could learn from.
its not like usa isnt doing the same, chinas just more blatant with it.
1989 happened
CCP and the Tiananmen Square
They gave up their bicycles and quaint straw hats for modernity and now they think they're entitled to the same standard of living as Americans.
If life was not so shitty under Trump I would be laughing too.
china will just do what they did with the soybean tariffs, export it to other countries cheaply to offset some of the cost.and then once the tariffs get rescinded, china doesnt need the us anymore.
Trump:
"God damn you, Jina!!!!!"
Probably.